True Colours
by Darth Tabby
Summary: Three years ago, two child soldiers met during a mission in the Middle East. Now, their paths are set to cross again as a terrorist group attempts to seize control of a deadly biological weapon. Can the two work together to prevent a catastrophe?
1. Prologue

Author's Foreword

This project probably owes its origins in part to the observation of a poster on the AnimeSuki forums that Canaan resembles a gender flipped version of Sousuke played for poignancy rather than humour. Personally, I'm not sure that's 100% true, but it actually is a pretty decent way to describe her character.

Anyway, after giving things some thought, I realised that Full Metal Panic and Canaan actually fit together remarkably well. This observation is based a bit on some FMP background information I've read on Wikipedia and other sources about Sousuke's past and the ways in which FMP's world differs from our own. Knowledge of this information made linking the two series together remarkably easy.

Chronologically, this fic more or less replaces the events of the 428 game that Canaan is a sequel to in Canaan's timeline, and takes place between the third and fourth novels/end of the first season and the start of TSR in the FMP universe. I'm playing a bit loose with the FMP timeline, since the time between those two stories is actually rather short and the events of this story are a bit of an awkward fit. But they don't mess up the time line too badly in my view, and if you find otherwise, you can always just imagine that this is a separate timeline where things occur differently after the end of the first season.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this fanfic!

-Darthtabby

True Colours: A Crossover

Prologue

Three years ago, somewhere in the Middle East…

The hot desert air shimmered in the lenses of the scope on Sousuke Sagara's Dragunov rifle as he took aim at his target, a man shaped silhouette perhaps half a kilometer downrange from his position. Unphased by this familiar phenomenon, the young boy positioned the scope's rangefinder over the target, estimating the distance as being close to five hundred meters, then took note of the stillness of the sands, which indicated that there were no crosswinds to contend with. Dialing in the correct elevation adjustments with a practiced hand, he braced the rifle firmly against his shoulder, placed his finger on the trigger, slowed his breathing, concentrated on the target, and then -in a brief moment of quiet between the discharges of the other weapons that were being fired nearby- pulled the trigger.

The Dragunov's booming report echoed down the range, and a moment later a small hole appeared in the silhouette target, right in the middle of the torso region. For a brief moment Sousuke allowed himself to feel a spark of satisfaction, then quickly repressed it. He'd made a good shot, but it had hardly been a difficult one. The range conditions were almost ideal, so he had no excuse not to deliver such a performance.

Bringing the Dragunov's scope back onto the target, Sousuke fired four more rounds, all of which struck the same region of the target. Satisfied with the results, he was about to switch to one of the other targets when he sensed a footstep behind him and spun to face it, his hand darting towards the grip of his holstered Glock as he did so.

What confronted him when he completed his turn was the tanned face of a young boy –no, on closer inspection it was a girl- with short white hair and oddly pale eyes. She was dressed in grey trousers, a dark t-shirt, a lighter coloured jacket, and a red neck cloth. There was some kind of automatic pistol –it looked like it might be a Beretta- in a holster at her side, and she carried a Heckler and Koch G3-SG/1 sharpshooter's rifle in her arms. Not recognizing the newcomer as anyone he knew, Sousuke glared at her for several moments as he crouched there with his hand hovering above his holster, the Dragunov lying forgotten on the sandbags that were used to form the range's firing line.

"Who are you?" he demanded. The girl just looked at him curiously for a moment.

"You have a funny colour," she noted.

Sousuke blinked, then stared at the girl, completely dumbfounded. Sensing his confusion, the girl smiled.

"You have a funny colour," she repeated. Sousuke just continued to stare at her.

"Uh…"

"I can see people's feelings as colors," the girl explained. "Shamu says it's because of something called Synethesia. He says there are sensory pathways in my brain that are fused together, so a reaction along one pathway can end up triggering a reaction along another, and vice versa."

"I see…" Sousuke noted. He'd never heard of such a thing before.

The girl studied Sousuke more closely.

"Where are you from?" she asked. "You don't look like you're from this area."

Sousuke shrugged.

"I'm from Japan," he replied. "Supposedly. I can't remember ever being there though."

The girl smiled.

"Really? I don't know much about Japan. Just that my favorite type of sugar candy comes from there."

Placing her rifle on the sandbags next to Sousuke's, she dug a pair of short, stick like objects wrapped in cellophane from her pocket and held them out to Sousuke.

"Would you like one?" she asked. Realising that they'd gotten off topic, Sousuke glared at the girl.

"You still haven't told me who you are," he reminded her. The girl shrugged.

'Shamu calls me Canaan. I don't remember my real name."

"Who's Shamu?"

Canaan smiled.

"He's my family. Well, sort of, anyway. We're not actually related. I guess you could say we're comrades."

_Comrades_. That was a word Sousuke understood. Far moreso than "family" at any rate.

"Why are you here?" he asked Canaan. Canaan shrugged and began to unwrap one of her sugar candies.

"Shamu was hired to help rescue some prisoners from a compound near here," she explained. "Your group has been hired for the same mission, so we're going to be working together."

"I see," Sousuke noted. So the girl was an ally. At least for now. The term "allies" didn't really mean much in a place like this, but they were better than nothing. Usually. It depended on how competent they were.

"Shamu and some of your people are discussing plans for the rescue, so Shamu suggested I should come here and practice my shooting," Canaan explained as she finished unwrapping the sugar candy. "You're Sousuke, right? An older foreigner suggested I should try and practice with you, since you were already here and we'll probably be working together during the mission tonight."

Sousuke nodded. Going by Canaan's description, it was probably Kalinin who had made that suggestion.

"Yes, I'm Sousuke."

Canaan smiled.

"I thought so. All the other people who are here right now are older than I am."

Plucking the now unwrapped sugar candy from her palm with her free hand, she held the other, still wrapped candy out to Sousuke.

"You're sure you don't want one?" she asked. Sousuke paused for a minute, then decided to accept the gesture.

"I'll have it later," he informed her as he extended a hand to take the piece of candy. "Right now we should be concentrating on our shooting practice."

Canaan nodded and placed her own stick of sugar candy in her mouth.

"Alright," she agreed, picking up her rifle as she did so. Kneeling down behind the sandbags, she braced it against her shoulder and surveyed the targets.

"I'm going to start with the closest target first, okay?" she asked. Sousuke nodded and picked up his discarded Dragunov.

"That's fine. I'll be shooting at the mid range targets for the time being. Let me know when you want to change."

Nodding, Canaan took her rifle off safe and began to make adjustments to its scope, the stick of sugar candy still hanging loosely from the side of her mouth as she did so. Sousuke watched her for a few moments, then turned back to his own targets.

_What a strange girl_, he thought to himself as he shouldered his weapon and prepared to fire.


	2. Chapter One

Here's the first chapter! I hope you enjoy it. The second one may take longer to go up than this one did -I already had a lot of this written before I published the prologue, and I also had a fair bit of time on my hands while I was working on this chapter.

Also, I rewrote the Foreword that accompanied the prologue. There was some information about the story's chronology that the original prologue didn't include, and it was also written from a somewhat FMP-centric perspective (this site used to require you to publish crossovers under one story category or the other, so my plan had been to publish this as a Full Metal Panic fanfic with a note explaining that it was a crossover with Canaan).

Chapter One

Tokyo, Japan

"And with that out of the way, I move that we adjourn this meeting." student council president Atsunobu Hayashimizu motioned.

"Seconded," student council vice president Kaname Chidori agreed, raising her hand. The other council members raised their hands shortly thereafter, and with that the motion was carried, ending what was perhaps the least stressful student council meeting Kaname had been to in a long time.

_Maybe if I'm lucky Sousuke will have "some business I need to take care of"_ _next meeting too,_ Kaname thought to herself as she exited the room. With the thought of the number one dark spot in her life, Kaname's good mood quickly began to turn sour on her. She hoped this "business" didn't involve any of Sousuke's usual violent antics. Just recently she'd had to talk him out of causing trouble for one of the members of a visiting girls softball team because the girl in question seemed "suspiciously interested" in her. And then the big idiot had gone and demanded to know _why_ the visitor was so interested in her. At which point the other girl turned to Kaname, stammered a little, and then blurted out "I like you!"

Which wouldn't have been so bad, all things considered, if it hadn't resulted in Kaname having to explain the entire situation to Sousuke. She still remembered the way _that_ had gone.

"_So you and Tokiwa…"_

"_No!"_

A hint of red crept into Kaname's cheeks. She was popular enough that she'd had to deal with confessions from other girls before, they didn't particularly embarrass her any more, heck, she actually preferred dealing with them to having to deal with a few of the jackass guys who couldn't take a hint. But to have to explain the situation to _Sousuke_ of all people… it got her embarrassed just _thinking_ about it!

Having checked the places where she was likely to find Sousuke indoors, Kaname exited the school building and began to search the grounds. It wasn't like she particularly wanted to find him, of course. She'd love to be able to simply walk home on her own for once. But if she did that, he'd fly into a panic and do all sorts of annoying, unnecessary things to "confirm her safety" and furthermore, she had to make sure he wasn't causing other people trouble while she wasn't around. She couldn't leave that idiot alone for an instant!

Rounding a corner, Kaname finally spotted her target. He was crouched down on his hands and knees beside a row of bushes, and he was… _gardening?!_

As unbelievable as it was, that was what appeared to be the case. Sousuke was kneeling on the pathway next to a bed of soil, his sleeves rolled up, a spade in hand, and an array of unplanted bushes at his side. A row of holes had already been dug in the soil in front of him, each one _just_ the right size for one of the unplanted bushes.

Kaname stared at the scene in shock, unable to comprehend what she was seeing.

"Uh… uh…"

She struggled to find the proper words. Looking up from what he was doing, Sousuke nodded his head in greeting.

"Ah, Chidori. I'm almost done here. Just give me a few more minutes and I'll be ready to go."

"Take your time," Kaname replied weakly, still barely able to comprehend what she was seeing. For Sousuke of all people to be doing something as normal as _gardening_… she just couldn't believe it. She half expected to see him pull a land mine out of his book bag and plant it under one of the bushes.

Recovering her strength with considerable effort, Kaname finally managed to say something.

"I didn't know you liked gardening, Sousuke."

Sousuke looked up from the spade work he was doing around the base of one of the bushes.

"Gardening? Is that what they call this? I don't particularly like it, but I do think it's important."

Kaname nodded.

"Yeah, it is. It really makes places like this school much more welcoming."

Maybe he was finally starting to catch on. Maybe all her hard work was finally going to pay off. She could have a normal life again…

"Don't you mean less welcoming?" Sousuke asked. "I'm doing this so that it's harder for intruders to hide their presence, after all."

"Hmmm?"

Kaname blinked.

_Harder for intruders to hide their presence?_

A sudden, sinking feeling settled into the pit of her stomach. As if on their own accord, her eyes panned downwards, taking a closer look at what Sousuke was doing.

_It looked an awful lot like he was digging up the bush rather than planting it._

A feeling of horror spreading slowly through her body, Kaname turned her attention to the bushes that were sitting next to Sousuke. Now that she took a closer look, she realised that they were not in pots, and that their root systems were awfully well developed for plants that had just recently been growing in a limited space. And now that she thought about it, hadn't there been some bushes planted alongside this path for a long time now?

With that, it slowly dawned on her. Sousuke wasn't planting bushes. He was _digging them out_. This wasn't gardening, it was another one of his paranoid military stunts!

"You… you're…" she stuttered, her confusion giving way to comprehension, and with that, the first vestiges of all-consuming anger. Only the sudden ringing of Sousuke's cell phone prevented her fury from rapidly reaching critical mass.

"Hello?" Sousuke answered. "I see. Understood, I'll depart via route eight ASAP. Urzu Seven, out."

Sousuke ended the call and flipped his cell phone closed.

"I'm sorry Chidori, but it appears I have to leave immediately. I'll finish this another time. Please make sure you take all possible precautions to ensure that you arrive home safely. Stick to crowded areas, don't stay out too late, and avoid walking past any parked vehicles, especially vans. If you can, travel with a group, and if all else fails, run for it. You're fast, so your chances of escaping by running are much better than your chances of being able to overpower an enemy in a fight."

And with those words he was off, walking quickly across the grounds towards the school's front entrance. Kaname yelled after him.

"Hey Sousuke! What are you doing? You can't just leave things like this!"

"I'm sorry, Chidori. My orders are very precise. I must leave immediately. I will deal with the remaining bushes some other time. Thankfully the ones that are left cannot provide much cover on their own. "

"No, you idiot! That's not what I mean. I-"

Kaname trailed off. It was already too late. Lowering her head, she unclenched her fists and relaxed her muscles, letting the built up tension flow slowly out of her body.

She felt like she was going to cry.

Lifting her head, she watched Sousuke wave once, then disappear from sight, leaving yet another massive mess in his wake.

Turning her attention back to the array of uprooted bushes, Kaname considered her options. Part of her wanted to just go home and try to forget this had happened. But she couldn't do that. It just wasn't an option. Because, in a weird sort of way, she felt responsible for Sousuke's actions. It didn't make sense for her to feel that way, but she did.

Doing what she could to roll up the sleeves of her recently laundered school uniform, Kaname glanced skyward and sighed.

_Why do you always have to be such a moron, Sousuke?_ she lamented as she got to work.

Three years ago, somewhere in the Middle East…

The rescue operation began shortly after nightfall.

Sousuke and Canaan were stationed on the roof of an abandoned building on a hill a short distance from the target compound. Both of them were carrying their rifles and sidearms, and Sousuke had also brought along an underfolder type Kalashnikov, just in case the two of them ran into trouble. It paid to be prepared when one was operating in such close proximity to the enemy.

"Green team, in position," Sousuke reported using the handheld radio they had been issued.

"Acknowledged Green team," replied the voice of Andrei Sergeivich Kalinin, Sousuke's mentor and the leader of the rescue unit's Red team. "What can you see?"

"I see signs of activity in three buildings," Sousuke reported. "The large one near the Southeast corner, a medium sized one near the centre of the compound, and a small one to the North near the motor pool. I also see a sentry patrolling the motor pool itself. The motor pool has five armed jeeps and three Arm Slaves, all older model Savages. I can't tell much about their condition from here."

"Copy that, Green," Kalinin replied. "We can see two sentries at the West entrance from our position."

"I can see a lot more enemies," Canaan noted softly from her position next to Sousuke. Glancing over, Sousuke saw that the young girl's gaze was fixed on the nearby compound, surveying it without the assistance of her riflescope or any other sort of vision device. Despite this, he got the distinct impression that she actually_ could_ see something that he couldn't. He also, for whatever reason, got the impression that her normally pale eyes were glowing somehow, though that was almost certainly his imagination or a trick of the light.

Pressing the transmit button on his radio, Sousuke reported Canaan's findings to Kalinin.

"My companion says she can see other enemies," he noted.

"Roger that, Green," Kalinin replied. "Ask her to identify their locations for us."

Sousuke handed the radio to Canaan, who took it without bothering to look away from the compound.

"There are thirty-four enemies and seven prisoners," she reported. "The prisoners are being held on the second floor of the large building in the Southeast corner. There are four guards on that floor, and an additional nine on the first floor. There are ten enemies in the building near the centre of the compound, four in the small building near the motor pool, and an additional two in a small building in the Northeast corner of the compound. There are also the two guards you reported at the West entrance, an additional two at the North entrance, and the sentry patrolling the motor pool."

Dead silence greeted this pronouncement. Sousuke stared at Canaan in shock, and Kalinin must have been having a similar reaction, because it was over half a minute before he sent a return transmission. When he finally did send it however, his voice was calm and full of authority.

"Acknowledged, Green Team. Blue Team, are you in position?"

"Just about, Red. We'll be ready to move when you are."

"Copy that, Blue Team. Your objective is the motor pool. Move in when I give the signal. Gold Team, power up your engines and stand by. Send me a transmission when you're ready."

Gold team was the rescue unit's Arm Slave detachment, which was positioned several kilometres away from the compound in order to evade detection by the defenders. If all went according to plan, their presence would not be necessary, but if things went wrong, their firepower might prove to be invaluable -even decisive.

The realisation that the group had accepted what Canaan said finally snapped Sousuke out of his daze.

"How...?" he wondered aloud.

"I told you earlier, remember? I can see other people's emotions as colours."

"Then..."

"The colour of hostility is blue," Canaan explained in a soft voice. "If I see a blue flame, I know there's an enemy there."

Sousuke stared at the girl in awe. Ordinarily he wouldn't have believed such a thing, but something –possibly the girl's mentor- appeared to have convinced Kalinin to trust what she said, and if Kalinin was willing to trust what the girl had said, then Sousuke felt her should at least consider it.

The radio handset crackled to life as the leader of Gold Team reported in.

"Gold team to Red Team. All units powered up and ready for combat."

"Acknowledged, Gold Team. Green team, keep an eye out for movement from the enemy. Your objective will be to neutralise the men guarding the motor pool as well as any targets of opportunity that present themselves. Hold your fire until I give the signal."

Retrieving the radio from Canaan, Sousuke pressed the transmit button and replied to Kalinin's transmission.

"Acknowledged, Red Team. We'll be ready."

Beside him, Canaan had shifted into a shooting position with her rifle at the ready.

"You cover the motor pool, I'll cover the rest of the compound," she suggested to Sousuke. Once again, her normally pale eyes appeared to be glowing red in the darkness, and this time Sousuke wasn't so sure it was just his imagination. All he knew was that thanks to that girl and her unique ability, his comrades managed to carry out that night's mission without taking a single casualty.

Mithril Assault Submarine TDD-1 _Tuatha De Danaan_

Sousuke's journey had taken him from Tokyo to Merida Island by plane, then from Merida Island to the flight deck of the _Tuatha De Danaan_ by helicopter. Since then, over seventy two hours had passed with little news of why he'd been summoned. That didn't bother Sousuke however. He was used to such waits. Other members of the battle group might whisper to each other and speculate about why the TDD-1 was being deployed to an area outside its usual Theatre of Operations, but Sousuke was content to wait for word from above, ignoring such dangerous conversation in favour of sharing news and stories with his comrades in the Special Response Team, who –for whatever reason- seemed to find the things that happened to him in Tokyo outrageously funny.

He did, however, make note of the fact that the TDD-1 was progressing steadily westwards, and that it was now in very close proximity to one of the most dangerous and volatile regions in the world, one whose borders and alliances had been redrawn less than ten years ago in the brutal and bloody conflict known simply as "The Fifth Middle Eastern War."

So in spite of his patience, it was not without a degree of anticipation that Sousuke joined a group of his comrades in the TDD-1's briefing room on the third day following his arrival.

"The mission briefing will now begin!" Sergeant Major Melissa Mao, Acting Commander of the Special Response Team, announced to the assembled personnel as Lieutenant Commander Kalinin entered the room. Almost instantly the sound of conversation ceased and was replaced by an expectant silence. Everyone who was present was eager to find out why they were there.

"Gentleman, I will get straight to the point," Kalinin announced as he took up position next to the briefing room's large LCD screen. "As many of you are aware, the TDD-1 is currently passing through the Arabian Sea, an area well outside our assigned theatre of operations. The reason for this is simple: headquarters has identified a high risk mission that needs to be carried out in this area and believes that our battle group is the unit best equipped to deal with it."

Taking a moment to insert a disc into a drive next to a panel of buttons, the Lieutenant Commander waited for its contents to appear on the LCD screen before continuing.

"Our target is located here, in the Republic of Basra, one of the successor states that grew out of the former nation of Iraq during the Fifth Middle Eastern War. As you may be aware, Basra has been carrying out an aggressive rearmament program for several years now."

Kalinin's eyes surveyed the faces of the assembled personnel.

"Normally, this would not be of any concern to us. The arms race in the Middle East has been going on for years. However, the latest toy that the Basra armed forces have added to their arsenal has become a cause for concern for us."

Kalinin's face hardened, becoming even sterner then it usually was.

"I'm sure all of you have at least a passing familiarity with the Ua Virus."

A shocked murmur ran through the assembled personnel. They knew about the Ua Virus, all right. While its use in the Fifth Middle Eastern war had been on a relatively small scale, its effect in the areas it had been used in was devastating. It might not be a biological weapon that could be spread as easily as most others, but it had one trait that made it incredibly fearsome: and that was the fact that it was a fast acting virus with a near 100% fatality rate. The population of several towns had been wiped out almost overnight by the use of that virus.

"Shit," one of the Primary Response Team foot soldiers seated in front of Sousuke muttered. Kalinin let the man's comment slide and switched the view on the LCD screen to one showing a satellite photo of a small military base.

"Our intelligence indicates that the virus samples obtained by the Basra government are being stored in a secure facility at this army base, which is currently home to the Republic's 9th Guards battalion, an independent mixed armour formation centered around a tank company and two AS companies. The former is equipped with Leclerc main battle tanks while the latter is equipped with Mistral II Arm Slaves."

Sousuke heard Kurz mutter something vulgar under his breath, and couldn't help but feel a little daunted himself. Not only was the unit responsible for guarding the target installation a well equipped elite unit, it was also much larger than any strike force the TDD-1 could reasonably field.

"In addition to the units of the 9th Guards battalion, four Mi-28 Havoc helicopters and several Skyguard air defence systems have recently been added to the base's defences," Kalinin continued as if discussing the details of the next day's training schedule. He wasn't the sort who let himself be phased easily.

"So how exactly do you expect us to deal with this wasp's nest?" one of Sousuke's fellow SRT operators enquired. The man didn't sound very happy. Ignoring the interruption, Kalinin switched the image on the LCD screen from a satellite photo to an operations map and continued with his explanation.

"The plan for our operation is as follows. The TDD-1 will sail into the Persian Gulf and take up position at a safe distance from the Basra coastline. From there, the strike force will be launched in two waves. The first wave will consist of Pave Mares carrying Arm Slaves and infantry squads, while the second wave will consist of gunship helicopters. Both waves will infiltrate Basra airspace under ECS cover. The first wave will deploy its Arm Slaves a short distance from the target facility, then remain on standby until the second wave arrives, at which point the attack will begin. The gunship helicopters and sniper cannon equipped Arm Slaves will be responsible for neutralising the enemy's defences, with the Skyguard systems to be considered priority targets. Once all the perimeter defences have been dealt with the AS teams will move into the base itself."

As Kalinin spoke, indicators, waypoints, and pathways appeared on the operations map, indicating where units would be deployed and where they were expected to go as the operation proceeded. It was plain to all present that the plan called for an exceptionally high level of coordination between the different units that were taking part in it. Thankfully quick, precise, well coordinated operations were one of things that Mithril was good at.

"For this operation, the Special Response Team's Arm Slaves will be divided into three teams of two, each of which will have one sniper unit and one skirmisher unit. Team One will be responsible for securing the area around the research facility where the virus is being stored, while Teams Two and Three will actively seek to engage the enemy. Both groups will receive gunship support. Once the area around the research facility has been cleared of heavy weapons, Geybo Two and Geybo Four will land behind it and deploy their infantry squads to seize the virus samples. Should they prove unable to do this, the squads aboard Geybo Seven and Geybo Nine will act as back up. Once the virus samples are secured, the Pave Mares will evacuate the area first, followed by the Arm Slaves and gunships. The AS units will use their ECS systems to break contact with the enemy and will rendezvous with their transports at a safe distance from the battlezone."

Kalinin raised his head and locked eyes with the soldiers under his command.

"All this must be done with the utmost speed, as reinforcements from nearby bases could begin to arrive in as little as thirty minutes. Are there any questions?"

One of the PRT operators casually raised his hand.

"Yeah. How much hazard pay do we get for this operation?"

Kalinin's smirk was the first sign of humour he had shown during the entire briefing.

"I'm afraid you'll have to ask someone in personnel about that. It's a bit outside my jurisdiction."

A laugh ran through the assembled operators, and with it a wave of relief. This might be a tough mission, but it wasn't an impossible one, not by a long shot. Sensing that it was time to move to the next stage, Mao clapped her hands once to get the crowd's attention.

"All right everyone! SRT personnel are to remain here so we can go over our objectives and loadouts in more detail. PRT and Air Wing personnel, you're dismissed for now, your officers will let you know when it's your turn. Come on people, let's get a move on. I don't want to be here all day!"

As the PRT soldiers and Air Wing pilots filed out of the room, Sousuke's mind briefly thought back to the occasions during their time in the Middle East where he and Kalinin had encountered –and in one case exchanged fire with- Republic of Basra troops. From what he could remember, they had been well trained and highly professional. If the Republic's regular troops were any indication of what to expect from their elite units, then he and his squadmates would be facing a formidable foe on their next battlefield.

As Sousuke thought back, his mind remembered one particularly tense but fortunately peaceful encounter.

_That was just after the mission were we were joined by that girl and her companion_, he thought to himself. He still remembered the girl who called herself Canaan -the one who could see people's feelings as colours. Over the years he'd begun to question whether his memory of what she had done was accurate, but after seeing Chidori's _whispered_ abilities in action he no longer had as many doubts. If Chidori could do the things he'd seen her do, what reason did he have to doubt what he had once seen Canaan do?

_Is she still alive?_ he wondered briefly before dismissing the question as irrelevant. After all, what were the chances that the two of them would ever cross paths again?

Standing up from his seat, Sousuke made to join his comrades near the front of the briefing room.

Somewhere in the Middle East…

A hooded figure made its way down a sun-scorched street, the folds of its cloak rippling slightly as the occasional hint of a breeze picked up bits of dust from the ground. The figure did not seem to notice either the dust or the heat as it made its way past the worn buildings, a small bag of some sort slung over its shoulder. What few people were present on the street gave the figure a wide berth, neither speaking to it nor getting too close. It was clear that the people in this part of town were familiar with the cloaked figure, and it was also clear that they were wary of it. _Very_ wary of it.

Coming up to a particularly worn looking building right on the edge of the town, the figure unlocked the door and went inside, where it put down its bag and shed its cloak, revealing itself to be a teenage girl of slender proportions. She was dressed in a greenish-grey pair of pants and a red top which showed off a pair of arms that were much like the rest of her body –lean, but powerful. The left arm was partially concealed by a brown fabric sheath that extended from her wrist to her elbow for reasons that were not immediately apparent. Perhaps most significantly, she had white hair that reached about half way down her neck and eyes that were strangely pale in colour.

Hanging her cloak on a peg in the wall, the girl picked up her bag and strode into the main part of her dwelling.

"If I was an enemy, you'd be dead by now," a voice announced from somewhere to the side of her as she entered the room. The girl didn't even flinch.

"If you were an enemy, I would have sensed it halfway down the street and acted accordingly," she replied. "But you're not an enemy, so I didn't see any reason to treat you like one."

The owner of the voice, a roughly dressed Caucasian man who appeared to be somewhere in his thirties, smirked as he took off his sunglasses.

"You're hard to phase, at any rate," he noted. The girl didn't reply as she made her way over to a nearby desk. Once there, she began to unpack the bag, removing a worn but well cared for Beretta Model 93R machine pistol and several magazines worth of ammunition. Once that was done she took off the bracelet she wore on her left wrist, undid the thin strap of red leather that was bound around the top of her forearm, and removed the underlying fabric sheath, revealing an intricate tattoo with a rather serpentine design.

The roughly dressed man watched the girl for a moment, then turned away, his eyes falling on part of the collection of weapons that was scattered throughout the room. He recognised most of them: a locally built clone of the FN Hi Power pistol. An old Webley service revolver. A Turkish CZ-75 variant. A Czech Skorpion submachine gun. An Israeli Micro-Uzi. A license built MP-5. Rifles of various types: a Mauser, a M16, a HK33, three different Kalashnikovs, a FAL, a Lee-Enfield, and a G3-SG/1. There was even an 84mm Carl Gustav recoilless rifle lying in one corner of the room next to a box of HEAT rounds.

"You've got quite the little arsenal here," he noted. "Got a lot of friends to share it with?"

The girl shook her head.

"I like guns," she replied. "I like them because they have no colour."

The man made a snorting noise.

_Well, that answers that question_,he thought to himself. He'd been briefed on his contact, so he knew what she was referring to when she talked about "colours," though he still wasn't sure if he bought into the whole idea. Being able to see people's emotions as colours? The idea was preposterous.

"You obviously didn't come here just to chat," the girl noted. "People like you never do."

There was no resentment or dislike in her tone, but there was no love either. People like the man who had come today were not friends to her –they were simply contacts. Nothing more, nothing less.

"We have a job for you," the man informed the girl, "We want you to go to the Republic of Basra."

The girl took a stick of some kind of candy from a container on her table and began to unwrap it.

"That's pretty far from here," she noted.

"We'll pay for your travel expenses," the man replied. "And the reward for the job itself is fairly substantial."

The girl nodded as she put the stick of sugar candy in her mouth.

"I see. So what do you want me to do?"

The contact smirked.

"You're familiar with the Ua Virus, right?"

The girl froze stock still, the first significant reaction her contact had seen in her since the start of their conversation. Yes, she knew what the Ua Virus was. She knew it better than most, in fact. After all, she'd been one of the few people who had ever survived it. She'd also lost everything she knew to the virus. Twice. The first time, it had been the town where she grew up. The second time…

_A woman with a tattoo much like the girl's own stood over the girl's mentor in the aisleway of an old train car, a sturdy case in one hand and an automatic pistol in the other. The pistol was aimed straight at her defeated mentor's head, hammer cocked and safety off._

_ "Shamu!" The word was torn from the girl's throat as she charged forward, weapon in hand. The woman turned towards the girl with cold eyes, barely even flinching as her wild, inaccurate fire filled the air._

_ WIthout saying a word, she pulled the pistol's trigger, sealing the fate of the only person Canaan truly considered to be family._

The girl's memory became blurry after that, but the next thing she remembered was standing there with the recovered case in hand, looking up as the woman who claimed to have the same name as her as she clung to the ladder of an escaping helicopter.

_ "What's your real name?" The girl demanded. The woman smirked._

_ "Alphard," she replied as she rose into the sky above. "I couldn't be you. I'm just your average terrorist."_

The girl named Canaan had won the fight that day. The virus samples that had been carried aboard the train left it in her possession. But in the process she had lost something irreplaceable.

Whenever Canaan encountered the Ua Virus, something she cared about was taken from her.

"Yes, I'm familiar with it," she told her contact coldly, taking the stick of sugar candy from her mouth as she did so. "Why?"

The man smirked a little more as he removed an envelope from his jacket pocket.

_I'm beginning to see why the boss likes this girl._

"The Republic of Basra recently started storing samples of the virus at one of their research facilities. A very secure one, located right smack in the middle of a rather well equipped garrison."

"And you want me to get those samples?" Canaan asked.

"Preferably yes," the man replied. "More importantly, however, we want you to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands. We think that other groups may be after the same samples, and we don't want any of them to get their hands on them."

"So you want me to wait until another group makes an attempt on the virus samples, then stop it and take them myself?" Canaan asked. The man nodded.

"That's the general idea, yes."

Canaan walked over to where the man was standing and took the envelope, which she proceeded to slit open with a combat knife before examining the contents, which included a typed report on the target facility and its surroundings, several photographs, and a rather substantial amount of money.

"Any idea who will be making the attempt to obtain the samples?" she asked.

The man shook his head.

"No."

"And yet you people are fairly sure an attempt is going to take place."

The man grinned.

"Call it a professional hunch."

Canaan nodded.

"So your bosses suspect something, but they haven't told you about it because they knew I'd sense it if you were hiding something," she noted. The man chuckled.

"I don't know anything about things like that, little miss. I'm just a messenger boy."

"That you are," Canaan agreed softly. Well, it wasn't like the lack of information mattered much in the overall scheme of things. She'd know her enemies when she sensed them. She just wished her employer would be a little more open with her.

_I guess they want me to figure things out for myself with this one._

"So will you take the job?" the man asked.

Canaan nodded.

"Yes."

"Good. That should be a relief to my bosses. When will you be leaving?"

Canaan shrugged.

"As soon as I'm packed."

Her contact chuckled.

_Girl certainly doesn't waste any time. I guess that's the advantage of not having any attachments._

"Well, I'll be going now," her contact informed her. "My bosses and I look forward to your success."

Canaan nodded once, but didn't say goodbye as the man left her house. Her thoughts were on her employer's reluctance to divulge information and what it could possibly mean.

_I wonder if that woman will be there_ she wondered, her thoughts drifting back to the woman with the tattoo who had claimed to have the same name as her. Her thoughts did not dwell on hate. Shamu had said to her that those who were consumed by hatred could only be inferior soldiers. Yet the girl couldn't help but wonder. Would that woman be there?

The thoughts were ultimately futile. Nothing would reveal itself until she reached her destination. Digging a large duffel bag out from under her bed, Canaan began to decide what it was that she was going to take with her.

Republic of Basra

Four tan coloured military transport trucks were parked in a line along the edge of the night shrouded highway, their engines and most of their lights turned off. Throughout the surrounding area, men in Republic of Basra Army uniforms stood guard with their Steyr AUG assault rifles, alert eyes scanning the darkness around them. They were a well trained, well disciplined, highly experienced body of men, and they carried themselves in a very professional manner. So professional a manner, in fact, that they could easily be mistaken for real members of the country's armed forces.

Some distance away from the trucks, a woman with short dark hair stood on a rocky outcropping, looking down at the town a little ways below and the military installation that stood just beyond it. She was dressed in a Republic of Basra officer's uniform with a lieutenant's rank insignia, and she wore a presentation grade Beretta pistol at her side. Female soldiers and officers were rare in the Republic's army, but they were not unheard of, and with her commanding presence and the way she wore her uniform, few would have doubted that this woman was the genuine article. Like the men standing guard over the trucks behind her, she acted her part very well.

A man dressed in a uniform with a Sergeant's rank insignia made his way up to the outcropping where the woman was standing.

"My lady, we've received a transmission from Python One. They just passed the first waypoint."

The woman in the officer's uniform nodded.

"Good work, Arif. Acknowledge the transmission and tell the men to get ready to move out. I'll be with you shortly."

Arif nodded.

"Yes, my lady."

The woman turned her attention back to the lights of the heavily guarded military installation a few kilometres away from her position. It had been two years since she'd last had an opportunity like this one. Her efforts last time had ended in failure thanks to her old mentor's new pupil. This time things would hopefully go more smoothly. She's put a lot of effort into formulating this plan, and she didn't intend to let anyone throw a wrench in it.

Thinking back to the events that had occurred two years before, the woman studied the part of her uniform's sleeve that covered her right forearm. Beneath that tan fabric was an intricate tattoo that was meant to represent the form of a snake. It was identical to the one her mentor had once had.

It was on that day two years ago that the woman had begun her efforts to free herself from her former mentor's shadow in earnest. She's already chosen a new name for herself. A name that referred to the brightest star in the constellation Hydra.

_Alphard. The solitary one. The backbone of the serpent._

She could still remember when she turned her gun on Shamu, ending his life once and for all with a well placed bullet. Yet even now –even after doing that- she still hadn't escaped from his shadow.

But that would all change soon. For now, she was a snake that slithered on the ground. Someday soon however, she'd be a snake that danced in the sky, rising high above all others.

In the meantime however there was something she needed. Something that was being kept within the confines of that fortress in the distance.

Taking one last look at the lights below, Alphard turned and strode back towards the trucks were her men were waiting. It was time for the snake to steal the lion's treasure.


End file.
